


Distractions

by northwesterndownpour



Category: A Separate Peace - John Knowles
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-15
Updated: 2015-03-15
Packaged: 2018-03-17 18:58:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3540440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/northwesterndownpour/pseuds/northwesterndownpour
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Finny would never love me. This I knew for a fact, like I knew that the sun would rise tomorrow or that we wouldn’t win the war. I liked to tell myself I had accepted it..."<br/>---<br/>Set before the second fall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Distractions

Finny would never love me. This I knew for a fact, like I knew that the sun would rise tomorrow or that we wouldn’t win the war. I liked to tell myself I had accepted it, but there were always those times, those moments, that sunbeam smile cast back over his shoulder at me as he dragged me off to some new war-themed game he had invented, when I couldn’t deny it. I could feel it corroding my heart and wearing me down, those times, when I couldn’t make myself give up hope… That day in mid- December when all the heaters in our building had broken and he had slept in my bed just to stay warm. How much longer could I keep at this before he found out, or I broke down from hopelessness and this hope that wouldn’t die? I had to find a distraction, a way out. I saw Finny every day, almost all day, we were constantly together. I couldn’t lose his friendship, but I had to find a way to stop this or it would end up killing me.

My shoes clicked on the polished wooden floor of the hallway. Around me I heard the identical, slightly echoing footsteps of the other boys walking to their respective classes. Then I picked up a familiar sound – the irregular steps of Brinker Hadley. It wasn’t that he walked unusually; it was because a piece had come off of the bottom of his right shoe, making the sound of that foot hitting the floor noticeably different. He was walking beside me. I looked over at him, a seed of an idea planting itself in my head. No doubt, he was very attractive, especially wearing that jacket. But, I thought as my idea took shape, he would never guess what I wanted to do unless I outright told him. Or showed him.

“Hey, Brinker,” This was it, I had no backup plan, I had to do it.

“Yeah?” He looked over at me curiously. I wasn’t usually the one to initiate conversation with him.

"You want to skip class?” I hadn’t thought this out well enough; I was buying time to think. And being away from other students would probably be a good idea.

He grinned at me. “Sure, Forrester,” And winked. _Winked_. It was almost as if he knew. I remembered how he had somehow known about the tree incident, cringing as I always did when I thought about that day. Then he grabbed my arm and we went outside, across the yard, to the field behind our dorm. “What’s your plan?”

“Oh, I don’t know… I thought we could, just – I don’t know.” This wasn’t turning out quite like I had planned.

Then he gave me a strange, inexplicable smirk… and pinned me against the ivy-encrusted back wall of the dormitory.  This was completely unexpected. At first I thought he was trying to attack me, to hurt me. He was taller than me, and had the advantage of strength, so I didn’t even have time to try to fight back before he secured my arms against the wall behind me. Then his lips slammed into mine. My first emotion after the lightning bolt of shock was relief that I wasn’t going to have to start this myself. He must feel the same way. Not the same way, but maybe closer to how I felt about Finny. After all, I was just using Brinker as a distraction. Or rather he was using me. Only after this split-second analysis did I actually feel the kiss. He was a good kisser; I reflected in a sort of daze, in fact it felt as if my body would melt into nothing from the places our skin was touching outward. He kissed me for a few long seconds before backing away to gauge my reaction. I managed to get it through my clouded head that I had to do something to let him know I wanted this. At that moment all I wanted was to be where I had been a few seconds ago, so I pulled him against me again and continued where he had left off.

Over the next few weeks Brinker and I would take detours like that first one on the way to class nearly every day. Finny was rarely on my mind. It was strange, it was different, but electric and new and I loved it. That horrible ache that was Finny was still there in the core of my chest, but it was background noise now. I could forget it when I was with Brinker. I felt like I had an insight into a drug addict’s life now, how my old life that had been bearable (if barely) before was now unthinkable to go back to.

But this couldn’t last. Sooner or later people would find out, we couldn’t keep this going in secret… I couldn’t even tell Finny. Not that he would be jealous of Brinker, but I had already kept this secret from him for so long, and I knew how much he resented it when I kept anything from him. I made sure to only ditch classes Finny wasn’t in so he wouldn’t wonder where I was. I knew it wouldn’t last in the end, but I was determined to keep it going for as long as it would go.

One day Brinker and I ditched school to bike to the beach. That same beach Finny and I went to last summer, before the fall, before everything had gotten so horribly out of hand. Of course I had still been in love with him then, but that was when I was still naïve enough to think I had a chance. We biked in companionable silence, occasionally shouting over the wind any remarks that came to our dizzy lovestruck heads. Too tired to move, we collapsed on the sand together for a few minutes as soon as we arrived. It was too cold to swim this time of year, (Finny would have anyway) but the real fun was just being here, knowing we were somewhere off-limits and away from everyone else. We did more in the way of forbidden that night than we ever had before, knowing no one would find us out. The plan was to get back to the school before curfew, so we wouldn’t be missed too badly. But caught up in the moment, I didn’t really care about the plan.

My eyes snapped open. I squinted at my watch, the moonlight barely illuminating it enough for me to see it pointing at 3 am. We had fallen asleep on the beach. Brinker was sleeping on the sand next to me, and I shook him awake, panicking. Finny. Finny would have noticed our absence. He would have wondered where I was, maybe he had looked for me. The guilt and panic was crushing.

“We have to get back,” I hissed to Brinker. He muttered something about just going back in the morning and I was about to tell him why we had to get back as soon as possible when I realized that I shouldn’t care. I shouldn’t care if Finny missed me. But I did, I cared so much it was controlling me. We raced back at double speed and somehow managed to sneak into the dorm. The door to Brinker’s room closed behind him and I was left standing alone in the hallway, nearly trembling with fear. It would be okay, I told myself, Finny would be asleep. I eased open the door so it wouldn’t creak – and saw Finny there across the room looking at me, laying on his bed. He tilted his head to the side slightly when I came in, and I thanked whatever god there was that he didn’t look angry.

“Hey, pal, where were ya?” He said it with a half-smile.

I had been so busy worrying I hadn’t come up with an excuse. “Oh, just… out. You know. Out.”

“You missed dinner!”

“Why are you still awake anyway?”

“I… I was waiting for you. Wanted to make sure you were okay.” He gave me one of those smiles that made my chest feel like it would implode and I wondered what good deed I had done to deserve him in my life. What the fuck was wrong with me. Had our places been reversed I would have been out of my mind with suspicion and jealousy, and here Finny was smiling at me like some kind of angel. We went to bed and I couldn’t stop myself from imagining the night with Brinker but with Finny in Brinker’s place, Finny kissing me, Finny doing things to me we would be expelled for if anyone knew. No matter how much I wanted not to, I liked that version of the night so much better than the version with Brinker. I hated myself for it.

The next day Brinker and I both fell asleep in class. There was no avoiding it, it was American History; I nearly fell asleep to the professor’s droning monotone voice every day even when I had gotten a decent amount of sleep. The problem with this was that Finny was also in that class.

“You’ve been spending a lot of time with Brinker lately,” Finny confronted me during break. I kept my fists clenched for the irrational fear he would see the sweat on my palms. But before I could invent some pathetic-sounding excuse, he went on, “Nice to see you finally making new friends! Now if I die you won’t be completely alone.” He slapped me on the back a few times. I knew he was making light of it to conceal his jealousy. He wanted to be my only friend. But he didn’t suspect what I was afraid he had, and that was all I needed. I told myself I couldn’t care less if he were jealous. He would always bury feelings like that anyway, that was Finny, always optimistic. I wondered what the limit to that optimism was.

A week later Finny’s grandmother died. She had been old, it had been expected, but it took something out of him. He took a break from school, and left to visit his parents for a few days. I watched until the taillights of the car taking him away faded into the distance, as the first snowflakes of the second snowfall of the winter fell.

There was a good side to Finny’s absence, a side Brinker was very happy about. We could do whatever we wanted without worrying about Finny showing up, as he often did. So that night I found myself in my dorm room, like any normal night, but with Brinker for companionship instead of Finny. He shrugged off his jacket, exposing his Devon dress shirt which was just slightly too small, giving him a risqué appearance despite his completely normal outfit. And then somehow we ended up in a mess of heat and tangled limbs on Finny’s bed, Brinker on top of me, pinning my arms above my head and kissing me hard. We were both stripped down to our underwear, the rest of our clothes thrown haphazardly to the floor. But no matter how talented Brinker was at this particular sport, I couldn’t stop imagining Phineas in his place. _Finny…_ My mind jumped into a fantasy of Finny doing this to me, all of this, I wanted it to be him on top of me, not Brinker, wanted it _so badly_ I couldn’t stop Finny’s name from escaping my mouth in the form of a moan. Realizing I had done this snapped me out of my idiotic fantasy, but then I realized Brinker’s alarmed expression a second later wasn’t because of my mistake. 

I had been so busy thinking about Finny I had failed to hear his footsteps coming down the hall, the click of the doorknob, the creak of the door…

He stood just inside the doorway in his Devon uniform, tie crooked, a few snowflakes clinging to his hair and eyelashes. His mouth hung slightly open, eyes staring in complete shock. He looked perfect, almost unreal, like he didn’t belong on this earth. He opened his mouth to speak and stuttered the beginnings to several questions but couldn’t finish more than a syllable. This was the first time I had ever seen him lost for words. Brinker stood up, slowly began pulling his clothes back on, and walk dignifiedly out the door, meeting Finny’s confused eyes with a cold glare. Great, now I was alone with him. How could I explain this? Finny crossed his arms and looked at me expectantly, waiting for a justification. But his face didn’t match his indignant body language. The look in his eyes was wounded, afraid, almost betrayed. Why was I seeing this? Unless by some bitter miracle… No, I had to stop with this. Anyway, why did I have to justify myself to him?  So what, I was fucking Brinker. Why should he care? I was about to say something along those lines when I saw the shine in his eyes, and the tears that followed. He swiped at his face with his sleeve, trying to hide it, then suddenly seemed to give up and turned and went to leave the room. I couldn’t let him, I had to explain, I had to find out why he cared so much…

“Finny! Wait.” I got up and grabbed his arm, and he angrily shrugged me off. But he didn’t leave. He sat on my bed and collapsed with his face buried in his hands, shaking. I didn’t know what to do. When I went over to him he shrank away, then stood up and cried,

“I’m done! I’m done with this, done with you and _Brinker_ ,” he said the name with disgust, “You never loved me! You were never even my friend! You think I don’t remember what happened in that tree but I do, Gene, I remember every second of it. I don’t know what you have against me but I’m done pretending it doesn’t exist. I know you didn’t want… what you’re doing with Brinker, with me, but I wanted to be your friend too, could you not even do that?”

This took me a moment to process. Finny… had thought of me, like that? Even though he knew about the tree.

“God, Finny, I’m so sorry, I… I loved you. All this time, I was going insane because I thought you would never love me like that and being friends was killing me because you loved me but not in the way I wanted and I guess I was just so messed up in the head from thinking in circles trying to find a reality where you did. I started that with Brinker to try to forget about loving you because I was so sure you would never love me back… Oh my god, all I want is you, you and no one else, that’s all I ever wanted all along. I know I’ve done some horrible things but Finny, please, I don’t know if you can ever forgive me but just know I love you.” I had either ruined everything or saved it.

Finny shook his head and ran the same direction Brinker had out the door. He left it hanging open behind him like a half-finished sentence. The silence left behind was deafening. I knew I had to go after him; he was so prone to acting on impulses he could do anything. I felt a creeping sensation of fear, but I shook it off as I jogged down the hallway in the direction he had gone. There was no sign of him. I reached the courtyard and hopelessly scanned the offshooting paths. Where would I go if I were Finny? That was a useless question; I wasn’t Finny and never could be, or even imagine what went through his head. Everything he had said to me still hadn’t really sunk in… If he loved me before, maybe there was still hope. I had to find him, and with a last-ditch idea I walked to the First Building, down the silent, suffocating hallway and up the marble steps, through the two doorways to the Assembly Room. It was an ominous room, like a cave, unlit and deserted at this hour. I didn’t see Finny at first, but the soft click of my footsteps must have alerted him I was there. At last I saw him, sitting on one of those uncomfortable wooden benches near the back corner of the room. I walked over to him and stood in the aisle next to his bench, my mind racing in fear. He saw me and didn’t react, as if hoping I would disappear or change my mind and leave.  He didn’t want me there, but I had to press on. But before I could say anything, he burst out;

“Why can’t you just leave me alone? Haven’t you hurt me enough? What are you going to do next, kill me? Like you haven’t tried twice already?” The words cut like rusty knives, hurting all the more because I knew they were true. As much as I lied to myself about it, I had tried to kill him when I made him fall out of that tree, and nearly succeeded. I don’t remember having that motive, but why else would I have done it? The second time, I assumed he was talking about Brinker; I hadn’t meant to hurt him. But nonetheless everything I did hurt him in some way. I realized that he wasn’t as forgiving as he seemed, he only either pretended the incident didn’t happen or carefully filed it away in his memory to be considered at a later date.

I considered doing something drastic, something out of a bad romance novel, like kissing him and confessing my love or something equally embarrassing. But I couldn’t bring myself to, and I doubted it would help anyway. No doubt he hated me now. I deserved it. He was still sitting on the bench, staring ahead with a glazed look on his face that for some reason broke my heart.

“Just leave,” he choked out, “I don’t care anymore.” Our misery and despair hung in the air around us like fog. I was about to start crying myself.

“Come on, Finny, I’m trying to fix this. Please just listen?” It seemed like our usual positions had been reversed. Finny, always the hopeless optimist, who would never admit a problem even existed… I guess there was a point when things went too far.

“Hmm.” He relaxed a little, sinking back into the wooden seat. He was going to give me a chance; maybe the Finny I had known before wasn’t completely gone.

“What happened with Brinker… I was doing that to get you out of my head, Finny, I couldn’t stop thinking about you and it was killing me. I had no idea…” I didn’t want to say it out loud for fear I had only imagined it. “I had no idea you… you…” I half expected him to say something terrifyingly out of character, to tell me this was just another one of my lies. Hell, that’s what I would say if it were me. But by some miracle he didn’t.

The heartbroken look that had worried me so much was gone from his face. I could tell he was thinking, trying to decide if he should give into the flaws in his personality and believe me. Suddenly a small smile flickered on the corner of his mouth. He looked up at me.

“Really?” He was properly grinning now, he looked less fragile. “All right, Gene, I’ll forgive you if you promise to do one thing!” His voice was teasing. He always would snap back to his default optimism at the slightest opportunity.

“What’s that?”

“Don’t you ever so much as _look_ at Brinker again,” He stood up, smiling sideways at me. “He might have a nicer butt than me but hey… I have _other_ nice things.” My face turned red and I unsuccessfully tried to stutter a response to this. We walked back to the dorm, and things seemed almost back to normal. Maybe they were different, maybe that was a good thing.  

I didn’t know how I would explain this to Brinker, but at the moment I didn’t really care. Finny grabbed my hand as we walked, reminding me of that time at the beginning of all this, when he asked me to hold his hand as we jumped out of the tree together. And I knew we would be better from now on, I knew things would be all right.

**Author's Note:**

> There are a few loose ends... but it's as much of an ending as there's ever going to be.  
> Please leave a review if you liked it! :)


End file.
